What The Chemist Sees
by mirrorballsymphony
Summary: The contraceptive pill comes to Discworld. Protests, arguments and chaos ensues, but who is behind the invention? Rated T for moderate language.
1. Chapter 1

**What The Chemist Sees**

**or The Contraceptive Pill Comes to Discworld**

**Controversial, I know, but I had to try it. Involves copious amounts of the Watch (who else?), Vetinari and my OC, Florrie Sherman, whose name comes from the confusingness which is the Random Name Generator.**

**All of Pratchett's characters belong to him, I'm merely throwing medicine at them. Florrie is my own, her name is the Random Name Generator's. Really, there is nothing I own here. Not even the Pill (Gregory Goodwin Pincus and Min Cheuh Chang, about 1952).**

**So, readers, enjoy :)**

* * *

The posters went up around the town at midnight, by furtive females* keeping an eye out for the Watch officers just around the corner, with a pot of paste and a hundred sheets each. Some others were given pots of paint, and told to make the notice as bright as possible.

They'd had to buy their own paint. The funds weren't running to much, but Matron had said that they would soon be reimbursed. As soon as the product was on the shelves, at least. And they all had to be coordinated, so there was a tense meeting between the Head of Posters and the Head of Painting, which went on for some time and ended up with only one conclusion.

'Not pink,' both of them said together.

By morning, the streets were awash with posters, some hastily tacked up because of the footsteps of a watchman or a thief behind them, some stuck on hard enough that the Watch had to use a sandblaster to get them off. Some were in red paint, some were in blue, some were in green and one sign, made by a particularly enterprising worker, was in fluorescent paint right at the top of Broad Way.

They all said the same message.

_All the Funn and None of the Fusse_

_Women, get your Pille today_

Underneath was a picture of a woman wearing not ever so much, and with a smile which, in the case of the enterprising worker, could glow in the dark.

The women who'd decorated the town met in an old church hall and congratulated themselves. And just two hundred yards away, the first reports were already coming into the chemists who went to the door of their shop and saw a box of packets of pills lying on the doorstep.

Each one of them looked from side to side, and, discretely, put the packets on the shelves behind the counter. Out of sight, out of mind.

* * *

*That is, if there is any other sort of female.

* * *

'Captain!' Vimes yelled down the stairs.

Captain Carrot looked round the door. 'Morning, sir.'

He held up the poster with an embarrassed look. 'These appeared last night, Captain - oh, don't look so shocked, you've seen it all before. Were there any reports of suspicious activity last night?'

Carrot looked confused. 'In Ankh-Morpork, sir?'

'Any reports of activity that was more suspicious than usual?' Vimes asked patiently.

'No, sir. Streets seemed a lot quieter than in the last couple of weeks.'

'Damn.' Vimes stared back down at the poster. 'Captain, would you fetch Sergeant Colon up for me?'

Colon was good, Vimes thought as the captain went down the stairs. If you wanted the opinion of the people, you went to Colon, seeing as he embodied most of it and heard a whole lot more.

'Ah, sergeant,' he said as the man entered, sweating slightly in the sun. 'What's your opinion on these?'

Colon glared at the poster. 'What, the pill thing? Ain't right, in my opinion, sir. Gods are gonna do what the gods are gonna do, better not muck around with it.'

Vimes nodded. And, right there, he had the mood of the people.

'Tell Carrot to send some men round the town taking these down,' he said. 'Tell him it's incitement for rebellion, something like that. He'll be against it anyway, though.'

'Right you are, sir. Affirmative action.'

'That'd be it.'

'Plain wrong, in my opinion.'

'Thank you, sergeant.'

Colon went placidly down the stairs and Vimes lit a cigar. He'd never usually use the public opinion in deciding what the watch should and shouldn't do, but some issues were too delicate to have displayed over the street.

He looked down at the poster again.

'Hmm.'

* * *

Florence Sherman, qualified chemist, hater of homeopathy, believer in the future, was stacking up the packs of pills on the shelf next to the door, so that anyone who wanted them could see them. She hadn't got quite the level of observation of the mood of the city that Samuel Vimes had, for instance, but had a pretty clear view of what was popular within certain areas of the city.

The ladder wobbled briefly as a customer came through the door and looked up at her.

'Eh, Florrie, what's this?'

She climbed down the few steps and walked behind the counter. 'Contraceptive pills, Mrs Doherty.'

'Contra-whats?'

'Contraceptive,' she repeated slowly. 'Protective.'

'Protective against what?'

'Having a baby, Mrs Doherty.'

Mrs Doherty, a woman of about forty years of actual age and a hundred years in opinion, looked up at the display. 'What, so they'll stop you getting up the duff?'

'Yes.'

'What's the point in that, then? Gods' gift to the earth, they are.'

'Some people'd like to control when they have them, who they have them with, that sort of thing.'

'What, so they can go floosyin' about with who they fancy?' Mrs Doherty sniffed. 'Don't think that's right, to be honest, Flor. What'll girls get into their head next?'

_Intelligence? Independence? More common sense than the gods blessed you with?_ Florrie thought, but kept it to herself.

'Gives them a bit of choice, in my opinion,' she said.

'They've got a bit of choice,' Mrs Doherty said, with all the wisdom of a woman who's seen it all before. 'They can keep their legs shut, if you'll mind my language.'

'But men don't have to do that.'

Mrs Doherty clearly had selective hearing. 'Just ain't right. Three packs of sage and a bottle of cod liver oil, dear. I can feel a cold coming on.'

_A homeopath,_ Florrie thought. _Well, that just tops it off._

'Right you are, Mrs Doherty,' she said meekly, and ducked behind the counter.

* * *

**Short chapter for now, but there shalt be more.**

**Reviews appreciated :) look at that nice little button...**


	2. Chapter 2

**superster: Pratchett-esque social commentary? I'm honored. And yes, there may be more...it's always lurking there, even if I don't want the cynicism to spill out.**

**GeoffG: It's a lovely button, isn't it? I will continue, I'm regularly threatened by Offler's teeth.**

**Elizabeth: Here is Vetinari's interview with Vimes. Enjoy it. I would say I wrote it for you, but I'd be lying, it was written a few days ago. It's in psychic tribute to you, though.**

**ZOYA1416: Florrie arrested? Is it bad that this has so little plot that I might have to steal that idea? Someone has to get arrested, after all...**

**Thank you for reading, everyone. Chapter 2, here we come.**

**Enjoy :)**

* * *

Lord Vetinari steepled his fingers and looked over the top of them at Sam Vimes, who was trying not to stare at the poster in front of His Lordship's hands. The woman in it, well, he'd seen more clothes on a horse before now*.

'Have you any information about these, commander?'

Vimes cleared his throat. 'Well, sir, we've started an investigation into what the pills contain. None of it's dangerous, according to Corporal Littlebottom, it's medicine that's been around since the dawn of time. You can buy it down back alleys, places like that, but they seem to have professionalised it.'

'Indeed.' Vetinari tipped a pill into his hand from a packet. 'And who might _they_ be?'

'Enquiries are continuing.'

Vetinari nodded. 'I have noticed that watchmen have been ordered to tear down posters advertising these pills.'

'Yessir.'

'May I ask why, commander?'

Vimes lowered his head a fraction of an inch so that he was looking at the Patrician. 'Well, sir, public opinion is dead against it. You know about the dwarfs and their views, and it seems that the humans themselves aren't welcoming.'

'And you yourself?'

Vetinari's smile was fairly pleasant, but suggested to Vimes that there was a right answer and a wrong answer here. He decided to go for the truth.

'Well, sir, if you ask me, there's ways and means already. From what Littlebottom was saying these pills seem to be fairly harmless, but who knows what effects there might be? Long term, I mean.'

'And you wouldn't say that the added independence of women outweighs this?'

'Sir?'

'Well, it seems to me like all available … preventative measures,' Lord Vetinari used the euphemism with distaste, 'rely on the man to perform it. Really, isn't it only fair that women get a go as well?'

'Well…yes, sir, but the way they're doing it…'

'The publicity campaign? The focus on the people?'

'Yes, sir. I'd wonder if they're actually doing it for the women, or for the publicity.'

Vetinari regarded him for a moment, and then grinned slightly. 'Of course, you would have to believe that. Understandable, of course. Keep the posters up, Vimes.'

'Pardon?'

'Keep them up. We can only embrace the future.'

'But public opinion…' Vimes paused. 'You think public opinion will change, don't you. You think people'll get used to it, they'll see the benefits.'

'What my opinion is, Sir Samuel, is irrelevant. I am simply instructing you to leave the posters where they are, for the time being.'

Vimes paused, and decided not to question it. 'Yes, sir.'

'Do not let me detain you, commander.'

As Vimes walked out he was too deep in thought to give the plaster covered wall a thought.

* * *

*That was one of those horses with curtains all around them, required by knights to draw the attention away from the fact that they were losing this joust. Oh, and one drunken memory, but that might have just been an unfortunately proportioned woman.

* * *

Traffic always grew as the day went on, but today it was growing faster than usual. It was becoming more furtive, as well.

Florrie was starting to notice a pattern. A woman would glance through the glass window and tilt her head in order to see the display, which Florrie had thoughtfully put a large sign over, would then look from side to side, dart into the shop, grab a packet, hand over the money in a gloved hand - she'd put the price up with the sign as well, to help them sort out the change before they got in - and dart back out again.

After the fourth time, she stopped one of the women in her tracks.

'It's nothing to be embarrassed about, you know.'

The woman's eyes, panicked, widened in amazement.

'But…'

'Look,' Florrie said kindly. 'We sell Sonkies, don't we. So why can't we sell these?'

The woman shook her head slightly. 'A lot of people are saying it isn't right,' she said quietly. 'Some of the neighbours…they'll talk, you know.'

'Why should they?'

'It's…unnatural, they're all saying. An' now that the Watch are leaving the posters up, people are scorning them. They're talking about them, miss.'

Florrie saw the woman's embarrassment. Because people didn't talk about that, did they? At least not in public, something like that was kept tightly under wraps. And in some communities, it wasn't talked about at all.

What was the stigma about? Florrie wondered. She'd had a few male friends, and had always insisted that there was no way whatsoever that she could get a baby and they'd been fine with it, had expected nothing else. But she remembered her mother's embarrassment when she'd had to explain the facts of life to a young Florrie who'd already heard it all before.

'Are people buying them?' the woman asked anxiously. 'I'm not…'

'Oh, yes. They're flying off the shelves. You're not the only one.'

'That's good.' She paused. 'I am married, you know,' she said quickly, 'it's just we've not got a proper house or anything, I don't want a baby yet.'

'I know,' Florrie said kindly.

'I don't want you to think that…'

_That you're what?_ Florrie asked herself. _Someone who can't keep your legs shut?_

'I don't.'

Another customer came through the door and the woman pressed the packet into her bag 'Thanks, Miss. Much appreciated.'

Florrie smiled wanly, and turned to the other customer.

* * *

Vimes walked back through the streets of the city as darkness fell, his thoughts swirling.

Well, of course they deserved independence. And it was a way to get it, yes, and women needed freedom and emancipation in a way that…well, in a way that he'd always thought they'd had. There weren't many opportunities for women in the city, he supposed, Angua had said that it was a choice between the Watch and the Seamstresses, and he'd bitten back the question of why she'd chosen the Watch…

But this way of doing it just seemed odd to me. Posters and graffiti and explicit iconographs on the walls…it didn't seem professional. It didn't seem like it was a woman doing it, or not his idea of a woman.

He could be wrong, though. His experience of women, after all, was limited to Sybil, and she wasn't the most subtle of people.

Unconsciously, his feet had taken him in the wrong direction, towards Sator Square. And there was a sea of placards in front of him.

Good feet, he thought, and shouldered his way through the crowd.

A man, overweight, red-faced and screaming into a megaphone, was standing in the middle of Sator Square.

'What are our women taking?' he was bellowing. 'What are they putting into their bodies?'

There was a roar of approval.

'Turning them into harlots!'

Another roar.

'Sluts!'

Another roar, increasing in anger.

'Whores!'

'Excuse me,' shouted Mrs Palm, observing from the sidelines. The man gulped as he heard the voice, and nodded his acknowledgement.

'Beggin' your pardon, Mrs Palm,' he said, and the crowd laughed. Buoyed up again, he started shouting.

'Give us men our independence back!'

Vimes made his way towards Rosemary Palm, who was watching the proceedings with interest. She turned towards him.

'Commander,' she said, inclining her head towards him.

He gestured towards the poster on the wall above her. 'Is this anything to do with you, Mrs Palm?'

She raised her eyebrows. 'I'm afraid not, Commander. Of course, we at the Seamstress' Guild back anything which will make our girls safer.'

'And your clients?'

'Bad for trade if a girl gets in the family way,' the woman said with all the wisdom of a person fifty years older. 'Some clients have a favourite, you know - well, I suppose you wouldn't - but if they go, that client might not come back.'

'It's all business, isn't it,' Vimes said glumly, looking at the man with the megaphone.

'At least it's not politics.'

Vimes gave her a sharp glance. 'And you don't know where it's come from? It seemed to come from thin air.'

She shrugged, rustling the cheap silk. 'Who knows, commander? Sometimes the future comes and grabs us by-'

'The horns?' Vimes suggested quickly. Mrs Palm gave him an amused look.

'Quite.' She glanced back at the soap box people, from whom people were starting to drift away. 'And sometimes, Sir Samuel, it's better to let it run.'


	3. Chapter 3

**GeoffG: Yes, I've had to both study and experience opinions on the Pill which are, as you say, varied. Hughnon Ridcully is going to be fun...**

**Elizabeth: I promise I will continue with Vetinari, even if just a brief mention from time to time. I sometimes think I have a miniature Havelock in my head encouraging my cynicism (not that it needs more encouraging)**

**Erbanana: Many might believe that the only thing controlling women in male biology - it's certainly a view I've heard expressed. We were always going to hear the male view first - not only did I want to start off with Vimes' reaction, it is the male view that we tend to hear before the female. **

**Zoya1416 (and I presume you are Guest as well): Vetinari is a forward thinking ruler. He's certainly a straight talking ruler, and would do a lot more for education about this sort of thing than anyone on Roundworld. Real world issue? Yep, something like have you seen some of the things they use in homeopathy? They use arsenic. Voluntarily. Have they no idea...now I must stop ranting.**

**Chapter Three. No idea where this is going to go.**

**Enjoy :)**

* * *

Business was improving, that was for sure.

There were a number of women coming in every day and asking questions. Questions about what they were, how to take them - thankfully, a slip of paper with instructions had been provided there with each packet - what they were made of. It was the last question that Florrie was having the most trouble with.

What were they made of? She'd tried all the tests that she had at her disposal which were, when it came down to it, fairly limited, and the only successful test she'd had was that for proteins. But that didn't make sense…

She glanced down at the white tablets and the powder in the pestle and mortar beside them. In a test tube several samples had turned purple.

Then she took off her glasses, locked up the shop and went to have a look around.

* * *

The same test was also being done by Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom in the forensics laboratory of the Watch. She sighed as yet another sample turned purple.

Sergeant Angua walked over and looked down at it.

'What does that mean?'

'It contains some sort of protein.' The dwarf shook it and glared at it. 'But it won't tell me what and it won't tell me why.'

Angua leaned against the workbench and looked away from Cheery. 'What's your opinion on this?'

Cheery replaced the test tube with a clink. 'Well, it's always very difficult. Dwarfs as a whole are against it, they believe that as Tak wrote everything into…'

Angua had heard this argument from Carrot. 'No, Cheery, what do you think about it. Forget about being a dwarf for a minute-'

'And be a copper?' Cheery grinned. 'You sound just like Mister Vimes.'

'You're so kind.'

She looked thoughtful. 'As long as it's not harming people, I don't think it's a problem. I mean, men have Sonkies, why shouldn't we have something?'

Angua pretended not to notice the dwarf's slight blush. 'True.'

'What about you?'

Angua paused. 'Well, I'm all for it, to be honest. We ought to be allowed a choice.'

'You've got five or six packets upstairs in Carrot's room under the floorboards and a couple of spares in Mrs Cake's room,' Cheery said, turning back to her test tubes.

Angua blinked. 'Wait, what?'

'And Carrot's never to know about it because he's strictly against it.' The dwarf turned around and smiled at her. 'Being a copper, remember.'

'Well done,' Angua admitted grudgingly.

'So you're not denying it.'

'Seven.'

'Seven packs?' The dwarf whistled through her teeth. 'Under the floorboards.'

'Don't be stupid.'

'In the drawer inside your socks?'

'Try again.'

Cheery paused. 'I give up.'

'Secret compartment inside the drawer inside his room.'

'Ah. I didn't know about that one.'

Angua looked at her incredulously. 'Of course you didn't. It's secret.'

* * *

Vimes glared down at his notebook. In the middle, circled, was the word 'Pille'.

He was treating this like it was a crime. It wasn't a crime, but for some reason it looked and smelled and _felt _like a crime. It was the way that it seemed like an anger campaign…posters and pictures and graffiti…demonstrations…anger…

His head slumped down onto the paper.

Maybe that was what they wanted?

But who would think like that? Who would want anger and hatred directed at them?

Someone who had something to prove.

But why would they have something to prove? Was it against the Watch, or was that being too selfish? Against the government?

The purpose of this campaign wasn't for business. He could feel that in his soul; for some reason it was too moral for that, giving women independence wouldn't improve business, or would it? It was just a pill, he kept telling himself. Just a pill.

Or the Alchemists? They might have branched out into medicine years too late and he wouldn't trust anything they made near a woman. Near a person. The Guild house fell to bits in high winds because they didn't like to build it back up again too stable. Maybe the nurses and doctors, maybe they'd seen one too many backstreet abortions to want to make another person go through that. Horror stories he'd heard as a child came back to haunt him.

Next to Pille he wrote Abortion and circled it, crossed out the second word and linked them up.

Cheery had tried to analyse it and couldn't. That might mean that it wasn't harmful, but in his bitter copper's soul he couldn't believe that. Something which came in white cardboard packages and only had a discrete label…no, that couldn't be harmless. It went against the rules of advertising.

He stared back down at the page.

He couldn't think. What Vetinari had said was still circling round his brain.

He slid the piece of paper underneath the other massive pile of paper which constituted his Shake It All About tray, and went home.

* * *

As darkness fell, Florrie put a crowbar into her handbag for good measure and walked out into the night.

Someone in a pub had mentioned where to find this group of women who'd been distributing the medicine. In the back of the temple hall by the Temple of Offler and, after she'd bought them another drink, they told her that they met at nine o'clock every evening and had done for the last three weeks. She'd come out with her purse nearly empty but with enough information to fill it.

She walked down the road, keeping to the lit areas and to the nicer part of town. About ten minutes in she came across a watchman proceeding ahead of her.

'Hello, miss,' he said respectfully as she walked past and smiled at him. 'Nice night for it.'

She had to agree, the moon was clear. She could almost see every paving stone in front of her.

'You aren't from that women pill organisation, are you?' he asked.

'No, sorry.'

'Only,' he leant forward conspiratorially, 'my wife and I've just got married, it's perfect for that. I ain't sayin' it's perfect for everything, but it's definitely a lot less…worry.'

'Glad to hear it,' Florrie said awkwardly.

'So if you know anyone in on it, could you tell 'em thanks?'

'No problem.' She turned around again after a few metres. 'Sorry, what made you think I was in on it?'

He shrugged. 'Women. They're always going around together, aren't they? One knows something, they all do.'

She considered this for a moment. 'Right. Thank you, officer.'

He saluted and she carried on, then turned down the street which she had scrawled down on a piece of paper. And, lo and behold, there was a light glowing faintly from just next to the temple*.

She walked up to the door and knocked twice. A slit slid across and a pair of eyes, lightly surrounded with mascara, looked out at her.

'I'm sorry,' the voice said sweetly, 'we don't buy from callers at the door.'

'I'm not selling anything.'

The eyes looked down at her empty hands. 'So why are you here, then?'

* * *

*Which was plunged into darkness. Sometimes, light symbolism just has to win.


	4. Chapter 4

**GeoffG: Well, I'm sticking more with the humour. Far safer that way.**

**Elizabeth: You've only just read Snuff! How has it just been sitting there! Anyway… Vetinari is a practical cynic - he sees the world cynically and deals with it - whereas I'd say that Vimes is still an idealistic cynic, however much he may not want to admit it.**

**Chapter Four. No idea how long this is going to be, but I do know that the characters aren't mine and belong to the god who is Pterry.**

**Enjoy :)  
**

* * *

There were a group of maybe ten or twelve of them walking through the streets. Up through Morpork, and they didn't have to worry about muggings if they all stayed together, walking in a huddle, and then across the river and into the centre of Ankh.

They walked down the road, skirts swishing and shoes hitting the ground lightly. Florrie followed them at the back of the group, with a middle aged woman and a teenage girl beside her.

'Is this your first meeting?' the woman asked.

Florrie smiled briefly. 'Yes. To be honest, I didn't expect to be coming.'

'You were the one who turned up on the doorstep, yeah?' the girl said.

'That'd be me.'

'We've had a few like that.' The girl looked her up and down. 'Most of them plead with us to give them more help. We don't get many who want to join.'

It was beginning to sound like a cult to Florrie. Certainly, the regular footsteps of the women were nothing but sinister.

'How long have you been a part of it?' she asked.

'Since the beginning.'

'And when was the-'

'Oh look, we're here,' the woman interrupted. It seemed too well placed to Florrie who, being female, was always suspicious of a group of women together.

She looked up at an imposing house - she hadn't even realised that they'd been walking down a driveway - with one light in a window upstairs still on. Behind it, she could see a man holding a child in his arms and placing it in a cot - the silhouette was dark against the yellow glow.

The leader of the group - Florrie had mentally christened her Pamela, because she had an air of Pamela-ness about her - knocked on the door quietly.

'Remember,' she said, 'what we're here for. He's suspicious.'

The light upstairs went off and a couple of minutes later the door opened and Florrie could see a man in the doorway. He regarded them suspiciously, frowning.

'Yes?' he asked harshly.

Pamela explained what they were doing there - Florrie kept a straight face as she caught the 'reason' - and the man grudgingly went to fetch his wife. As she arrived, Pamela relaxed.

'Hello again, Pamela,' the woman said - Florrie awarded herself a medal - shaking Pamela's hand and ushering them in. 'Dear, will you go and see to the baby?' she asked, in special wifely harmonics that said _'Go and see the baby, or else'_.

The man went grudgingly back up the stairs, pausing to survey the tops of their heads like they'd be able to give him some more clues.

'Do sit down,' the woman said, then turned to smile at Florrie. 'Ah, dear, you're new today. A new recruit?'

'Something like that.'

'And has anyone explained to you what we're trying to do?'

Florrie sat down at a chair which was offered to her and gratefully accepted the cup of tea, which tasted slightly too chemically for her liking. And the other woman sat down, then another, then another, until they were all sitting in a circle and watching each other.

'So,' the woman whose house it was said, 'I expect you're wondering who we are.'

* * *

The next day, Sir Samuel Vimes opened his door to see a whole new pile of paper on his desk, most of it looking un-formlike. He sighed and remembered how little he enjoyed complaints; he usually doled them over to Carrot, who was the only one who could understand the grammar that made his head ache.

But these did look slightly more upper class than the complaints he usually received. He noted the decent quality paper and the ink pen, the copperplate handwriting, the headers of some of them which told him exactly how many worthless qualifications that the person who was addressing him had…

It wasn't going to be a good day.

There was a knock on the door.

'Come in, Angua,' he said tiredly. She came round the door and frowned at him.

'Rough night?'

'Who are you addressing?'

'Rough night, sir?'

He gave her that one, grudgingly. 'Don't know what this bloody contraceptive business's going to come to.' He peered at her. 'You don't look much better.'

She shrugged. 'It's nothing, sir.'

'What did you want to see me about?'

'We've got a tip off that they're planning some sort of protest in Sator Square.'

'For or against?'

'For, this morning. Actually, it's saying that the pill should be free.'

Vimes riffled through the stack and pulled out one at random. 'Ah, here's one that looks right. A 'Henrietta Hampton' - do you know her, sergeant?'

'No, sir. Carrot probably will.'

'Ha. Yes, he will. Well, she's saying that women are the ones who have to give birth to the children, so as compensation for that they ought to get free contraception.' Vimes looked straight at Angua. 'Care to give your opinion on that, Angua?'

'Not at all, sir.'

'You surprise me. So she'll be there, I suppose.'

'Probably. Though judging by that stack of paper there'll be more than just her there, sir.'

'Do you think you can deal with it, sergeant?'

She looked slightly surprised, but hid it well. 'Yes, sir. I've had enough experience doing it.'

'Good. Well, you're in charge of the policing of the protests.'

'Not Carrot?'

Vimes paused for a moment. Why hadn't he picked Carrot to deal with this? He was a dwarf, he supposed, they were known to have certain views…

'You're more likely to sympathise with them.'

Her look sharpened. 'What do you mean by that, sir?'

He waved his hands vaguely in the air. 'You know, you're a woman. You're more likely to understand them, that sort of thing.'

As she left he found himself wondering what he had meant by that. Something more than she'd given away, that was for sure.

* * *

Florrie stood on the sidelines of this protest, staged just as night was starting to fall, and watched the crowd of women, interspersed with a few well-meaning men and some who'd been dragged along by the promise of marriage. A woman who looked remarkably like Pamela* was on the soap box with a megaphone.

*It's at times like these when the Pamelas of this world come into play. Also joined, a lot of the time, by the Tanyas who pronounce their names with a long 'a', the Eugenes, who want to get back at their parents and the Isadoras, who are few and far between.

'Free protection for all!' she yelled, nearly deafening people standing close to her.

Across the square, a group of men were trying to surreptitiously protest whilst being watched by the women on the outside of their group.

'Let us have our independence!' the main speaker was shouting. The rest of the men were starting to drift off with the look of innocent bystanders.

Florrie was surprised by the lack of watchmen here, until she caught sight of a group of men and woman who had seemingly drifted together, and were trying hard to act like they didn't know each other. They were conspicuous in their clothes, which weren't exactly wrong but…unique. They were too smart, for one thing, and looked like they weren't worn very often.

The crowds were starting to move on with the few Watch officers who were ushering them away as night fell. Cries of 'Ain't you lot got no home to go to?' echoed through the square.

Florrie turned away and, as she did, spotted a piece of paper on the floor which had been dropped by one of the protestors. Looking around carefully, she bent down and picked it up.

'Come on, love,' a Watchman said from behind her. 'Move on now. Show's over.'

She nodded and, fingering the paper in her pocket, walked back home.


	5. Chapter 5

**GeoffG: I know, I like to tease :D (yes, I'm aware that sounds very odd). Double bluff? You underestimate me, there's going to be about a quadruple bluff if I get my way.**

**Elizabeth: As the cynic in the corner (and I deserve that title, I once had a battle with an english teacher and won over who got to wear the Cynic Hat) I would say that Vetinari does care, but is far too cynical to want to care and to let his care for the people get in the way of politics. I think definitely during Night Watch he was idealistic, but maybe that's become tarnished by the grime of Ankh-Morpork.****In terms of the story, yep, and Vimes doesn't like that. I enjoy writing annoyed Vimes.**

**Chapter 5, everyone (or everyone who reads this, anyway). And you know that little review button, people who read this and don't review - I know who you are - why not try pressing it? It'll give the button purpose in life.**

** Enjoy :)**

* * *

Samuel Vimes ripped a piece of tape off and carefully applied it to the join between the two pieces of paper. Then he turned it over, and did the same to the other side.

The mind map was growing.

Vimes didn't have large handwriting. It wasn't neat, it was more of a manly scrawl with a few curls dotted here or there when he stopped concentrating, and he'd had to resort to coloured ink to differentiate between the different scribbles. Arrows decorated the cheap paper. Stars linked to other stars in opposite corners of the page. It was the sort of mind map which would make a scientist weep with terror.

Thankfully, Vimes wasn't a scientist. However, within the mind map was the word 'Alchemists' but he couldn't quite remember where he'd put it.

The alchemists were a complicated lot. They couldn't be trusted - anyone who was trusted with chemical instruments in order to blow things up needed to get their priorities straight. They had barrels of gunpowder in the basement, or so he'd heard, for scientific purposes. He'd never had much to do with them.

But he knew someone who had.

'Cheery?' he called down the stairs.

'She's not in,' Colon shouted back up. 'Remember? She had holiday leave so she's in Uberwald?'

'Bloody employment laws,' Vimes muttered under his breath. 'Is Angua in?'

'Damn it,' he heard Angua say, and then a pair of footsteps on the stairs. 'Yes, sir.'

'We're off to the Alchemists'.'

Angua raised her eyebrows. 'Any reason why, sir?'

Vimes looked back down at his paper. 'Because they've got to be bloody behind this.'

* * *

Florrie had her own little lab in the back of the chemists'. It was necessary when people brought you stuff that they'd gotten off their neighbour who swore to the recipe to test exactly what poison they'd put into their body.

She swore _at_ the recipe. Every time.

A couple of people had been asking what exactly was in these magical pills. Not many people, admittedly - most were just thankful for them - but a couple had become inquisitive and she hated saying 'I don't know'. The trouble was that she didn't know what she was looking _for_.

Proteins. She definitely had proteins. But which proteins and why? She'd run all the normal tests and they'd all come up negatively, and everyone knew that protein was steak and things like that and that couldn't be bad for you. No one had come back ill after taking them. But what did they do?

The doorbell went and she took off her goggles. She'd seen too many alchemists lose their sight practicing their art.

A brash looking woman stood in the doorway, looking around disdainfully. A Selachii or a Venturi, Florrie was willing to bet; she had the nose for it*.

'Good morning, ma'am,' she said pleasantly. She hated this politeness to customers thing, but it had to be done.

The woman pivoted around and looked at her. 'Good morning.'

'What can I get for you?'

The woman came closer. 'Oh, I don't think it's what you can get for me. It's what I can do for you.'

She smiled briefly, like a shark's fin darting out of the water, and Florrie's stomach dropped.

* * *

*General opinion in Ankh-Morpork dictated that if lords weren't going to be good or bad they should at least be _noticeable_. In the case of some of the Selachiis, it was hard to notice the noble behind the nose.

* * *

There was no smoke. That was the strangest thing about the Alchemists' Guild that morning, apart from the fact that it looked like it would blow down in a strong wind.

Angua and Vimes walked down the Street of Alchemists towards it, and Angua sniffed the air.

'Last explosion was eight days ago, sir.' She paused. 'Record?'

'Probably,' Vimes said, cleaning his fingernails. 'Not that I'm complaining.'

He knocked on the door. From behind it, he could hear a muttered conversation about who was going to open the door this time and a brief tinkle of glass.

The door opened.

'Commander Vimes, City Watch,' he said, sticking his foot in the door just in case. 'And this here's Sergeant Angua. Could we ask a couple of questions, sir.' It wasn't phrased as a question.

The alchemist recovered surprisingly quickly. 'Of course, commander. Do come in.'

They were led through a narrow hallway into a room filled with bubbling beakers and with all the windows open, which wasn't helping at all. Angua tried to stifle her coughing behind her sleeve.

'Yes, sorry,' the alchemist said. 'It's the sulphur, you see. Goes straight to the back of your lungs.'

'Could we possibly leave this room?' Vimes asked, glancing over at Angua.

'Of course, of course, sir. Let me just go and get the Professor for you.'

As he scurried out Vimes looked at Angua. 'All right, sergeant?'

'I'll be fine.' Her eyes were watering.

'Can you smell it here?'

'What, the pill?' She paused. 'I can smell something like it. Not quite it, though, not as lilac. Almost like they've-'

'Ah, commander,' came a voice from the doorway.

Vimes turned around, and stared.

* * *

Florrie stared at the floor. She'd had to sit down quite quickly after her … visitor had left.

That was a lot of money.

Enough money, in fact, to get out of here. She could go and work in Quirm, if she so desired. She could set up a chain of chemists. She could buy a house larger than the flat she rented at the moment.

_It's a trap,_ she told herself, but her brain didn't seem to want to know.

She supposed that they must have been successful with the whole gold thing, that's where they'd gotten the money from. Cash, she'd been told, and that mattered. Florrie, like many around her, didn't trust banks.

It was a _lot_ of money.

Idly, her mind started thinking of all the things she could buy with that much. There was so much of it, for a start.

There was another ring of the door and she snapped her head up, then served the customer in a daze.

'You all right, Florrie?' they asked.

'Fine, fine.'

They left and she sat back down, staring at nothing.

They were obviously trying to bribe her. They were trying to exploit her knowledge of chemicals and her hatred of homeopathy to get her to do whatever they wanted…

…and that made her feel a little proud, because she was good enough to be wanted.

Stop it, she told herself. They're trying to bribe you. And you know where that goes - you'll find out what they want and then they'll give you something more to do and then you'll be spying and gods know where that'll get you, especially with a group of Pamelas.

But there was still that twinge of pride. She was important enough.

The doorbell rang again and she looked up into the face of two Watch officers.


End file.
